


Run, Rabbit, Run

by ShadowWalrus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Horror, Survival Horror, Thriller, Transgender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:27:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25200025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowWalrus/pseuds/ShadowWalrus
Summary: Harry gets trapped in the house of a transphobic children's book author, who is convinced he is a transgender spy out to get her.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

The overgrown wilderness was the first thing Harry noticed upon apparating. The road beneath his feet had been on the map, but the vast canopy of trees blocking out the sun came as a surprise, as did the forest of weeds sprouting up through the road's equally dense forest of cracks.

Ahead of him loomed an enormous wrought-iron gate set into an equally huge fence, twelve feet high and with every bar capped with a menacing spike. In its centre sat a massive iron lion taller than he was. Its face seemed twisted unnaturally, though whether by design or incompetence he could not say. Suddenly its head twisted downwards and it fixed him with a menacing glare.

"Who are you?" it said in the voice of an older woman.

"I'm Harry Potter," he said, brushing dirt from his suit as he got to his feet. He pulled his ministry badge from his pocket and held it as close to the snarling face as he could manage. The lion recoiled, its face morphing into a look of fear. "Don't worry, I'm not here to arrest you or anything," he continued, "I just need to ask you a few questions about Mary Crannock. Your editor from back in the day."

"Oh, Mary," the voice said. "Yes, you'd better come in then." The gate started to creak open. "I'm just over a mile down the road. Sorry for the walk, but it's best for security."

Harry was almost impressed by the sheer scale of the unkemptness and general decay he saw as he made his way up the path. After a while the trees gave way to an enormous meadow, thick with wild grasses and nettles and surrounded on all sides by a dense forest. In the centre was an old, eccentrically built house from that age when a manor's value was determined by how many windows sprouted from each wall, and which from a distance resembled the eyes of a fly. Close to it sat several old barns in various states of disrepair, one with its roof collapsed inwards. The estate looked abandoned.

The front door opened inwards before he reached it. An elderly house elf stood in the doorway, his face drawn into a broad but fake smile.

"Are you here to see Mistress Redford?" he asked.

"Yes, I am," Harry said.

"It's okay Tom, let him in," a voice inside called out. As Tom opened the door fully Harry saw Katie Redford stand up from an ancient armchair at the other end of the living room. He had not seen a photograph of her since the one in his book when he was a child, and was struck by how much older she looked than he had expected. Her face was lined like someone who had lived a life of suffering, which he found strange to imagine of her.

He had been a first year at school when her books began coming out, and every time they had been all anyone would read or talk about for months afterwards. Mobs of parents swarmed Flourish and Blotts like locusts fighting over every last copy, their brawls becoming so savage the owner once had to stupefy an entire crowd before they burned the shop down.

Her books were the usual children's adventure stuff, about a group of young wizard friends hunting a dark wizard (who Harry had always suspected was based on Grindlewald), and Harry, like everyone else, had loved following their adventures. From time to time he and his friends still compared themselves to the characters, arguing over who most closely resembled who. Katie's creation had made her immensely wealthy, and Harry vaguely remembered seeing a photograph of this house in the Prophet. At the time he had envied her owning it.

"You're Harry?" she said, eyeing him suspiciously. Had it really been so long since Hogwarts that people could forget his face?

"Yes," he said. "May I come in?" Her eyes narrowed for a second, then suddenly opened again to a look of almost aggressive friendliness.

"Absolutely dear, come on in," she said.

The house was in scarcely better shape than the grounds. Broken shelves spilled books across the floor, wallpaper peeled in every corner and the kitchen sink was filled to the brim, mould spreading across several plates.

"I'm sorry about the mess," Katie said as he walked in, "but it's not easy living behind bars. You tend to go a bit, you know, funny."

"Behind bars?" Harry asked.

"Yes, you know, those gates. It's the only way to keep them out. Cost me a fortune, what with the anti-apparating charms and everything."

"Who are you trying to keep out?"

"The people who want to hurt me."

"And who are they?"

"Transgender extremists. They've been targeting me for years now, ever since I began speaking out against them."

"Targeting you how?" Harry searched his memory but could not remember hearing anything about this at work. Surely the news would have spread around the office like wildfire.

"They spread lies about me, ruined my reputation. I had to turn this place into a fortress to be safe from them." As she said this it rang a bell somewhere in Harry's memory. He vaguely remembered years ago hearing Cho – no, wait, what was his name now? Jiao-long, that was it – saying he'd thrown out his copies of her books after she'd said something unpleasant about trans people.

"Have people tried to harm you here?" he said.

"No, no, never, the gates kept them away. They knew better than to try and break in. You must have felt the hairs on your neck tingle as you walked up to it. Trust me, if you'd tried to break through you'd have felt a lot more than that."

"Okay, well, do you mind if we talk about Ms Crannock?" Harry asked.

"Oh yes, Mary," Katie said. "I've not seen her in, oh, must be ten years now. She edited some of my later books. Not as popular as the earlier ones, they were, but I felt they were better."

"I wanted to ask you if-"

"Oh, wait!" Katie interrupted. "I forgot, I must get you some tea. I'm such a bad host these days."

"It's fine, really."

"No, I insist," said Katie, shuffling into the kitchen and with her wand bringing out dirty mugs and teabags from a cupboard.

"As I was saying, I wanted to ask you if you remember one of her friends, this man," he said, holding up a photograph cut from an old issue of the Prophet. It showed Katie, Mary and another man at a book launch, all thin, middle-aged and happy. From the youth and shine on Katie's face you would never have guessed it had been taken only fifteen years ago.

"Oh, David, yes I remember him," she said. "Strange fellow, kept trying to sell me- milk and sugar, love?"

"No thanks."

"Fair enough," she said, as the teacup floated across the room to Harry. "Never understood people who don't like tea with their-"

"David, we were-"

"Oh yes, love. Kept trying to sell me-" She looked up suddenly at the ceiling, where a fresh leak had begun dripping on the carpet between them. "Tom, where are you you ungrateful lout? I gave you one simple job to do this week and you slack off!"

Tom suddenly appeared by her side, a look of apology and fear on his face. "I'm sorry Mistress," he said. "I'll have it done at once."

"Don't say it, just do it!" she yelled back, with a ferocity Harry would not have expected from this timid old lady. Tom vanished momentarily and returned with a bucket.

"Sorry about him," she said to Harry. "He used to be much better, but age gets the better of all of us. It's good that they enjoy it, at least."

"Enjoy what?"

"Being ordered about. Serving, you know. It's funny really, after a while they always end up feeling like another member of the family. You can't help but love them. If I was dying he'd happily give his life to save mine."

"Alright, well back to the point. What was it that David was trying to sell you?"

"Ah, yes. Dragon's eggs, believe it or not. Take a seat, please." She indicated the armchair and Harry took it, and as she walked past on her way to the sofa she bumped into him, spilling tea all over his arm. "Oh I'm so sorry, let me get that for you," she said, dabbing at his arm with a rag from her pocket. "Wait, of course." She pulled out her wand and with a muttered incantation the stain vanished as if it had never been there.

"Anyway," she continued, taking a seat. "He said he got them from someone in the Ministry. I didn't believe him at the time of course, but then he started pulling them out of his pockets. It was quite remarkable."

The tea tasted overly bitter to Harry. "Do you remember when this was?" he asked.

"Oh, maybe fifteen years ago. I met him at that party and he kept coming around here for months afterwards, always trying to sell me dragon eggs. I had to ban him from coming round after a while."

Harry suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to urinate. "Do you mind if I use your toilet?"

"Sure, dear. It's on the second floor, right opposite the top of the stairs." She watched him as he climbed them. It seemed an awfully long way to go, he thought, in a house this size.

As he entered the small, cramped room, with nothing but a toilet and a tiny metal sink protruding from the wall, he saw the owl watching him. Large and with dull red feathers it sat unmoving on the windowsill, never taking its eyes off him. He was too desperate to go to care why it was there, but as he unzipped his trousers it looked downwards and while he relieved himself he could never shake the feeling it was staring at his crotch.

As he returned to the living room Katie was pulling herself to her feet in front of a newly opened window in the kitchen.

"Sorry, where were we?" she said.

"We were talking about your friend Dave and his- his-" Harry's mouth suddenly stopped working. Sounds were coming out, but not words, and his lips had turned numb. As his limbs began to fail he fumbled one hand into his pocket. It was empty.

"Looking for this?" Katie said, holding up Harry's wand. It was the last thing he heard before his legs gave out from under him and he fell into blackness.


	2. Chapter 2

**(Note: I changed the house elf Peter's name to Tom as I feel it fits better)**

"Lumos," said the voice in the darkness. A bright, blinding light burst into existence near the ceiling above him, startling Harry awake. He was in an ancient, mouldering basement, one end filled with boxes buried deep in a forest of cobwebs. The first thing he felt, after the pain of the light searing into his eyeballs, was the cold and damp on his skin. He was naked. And bound to a chair. He couldn't feel any restraints, but was as immobile and rigid as if he had been welded to it.

"Well," Katie said, looking him up and down. "You've taken care of your body. Or at least Harry has." She sat opposite him on an old, cracked wooden chair, the harsh light from the ceiling casting her eyes into deep, shadowy pits. She was holding his wand.

"What-" Harry began, but she interrupted him.

"Do you really think I would be so stupid?" she asked, the baffled, doddering countenance replaced by a sharp, piercing tone. "The Boy Who Lived, Harry Potter himself, suddenly turns up at my door to ask me about someone I've not heard from in fifteen years?"

"What?"

"Who are you?"

"I'm Harry Potter. I work for the-"

"No. Who are you?" she snarled. Harry wasn't sure how to respond. "It was a dumb disguise. Polyjuice, obviously. I don't know how you got hold of his hair, or snot, or whatever it was you got from him, but we'll see soon enough." She stared at him a long time. "Just admit it."

"I've got nothing to admit, I'm Harry Potter, you know-"

"I know you're spying for them. You've come to find a way past my gates, so you and all your little friends can scamper in and finish me once and for all. Aren't you?"

"I-"

"I bet that's not even your dick."

"What?" shrieked Harry.

"Unfortunately I can't remember the spell to reverse Polyjuice right now, so we're going to have to wait for it to wear off. I have to say it's funny that you come to me dressed as, of all people, the Boy Who Lived. Because your kind are exactly the sort of people he gave his life fighting against.

"He died to safeguard other people's freedom. Out of everything Voldemort did in power the worst was making sure you could not even utter his name. The second you said it, boom, a hooded death squad popped out of existence next to you. That's what it's like for people like me now, for everyone who speaks out against people like you. You can barely even get a single word out before you're being spat at on the street."

"I have literally no idea what you're-" Harry began, but his lips suddenly melted themselves shut as she sneered a curse at him.

"Don't lie! Don't you dare lie to me! People like you have been lying to me for so many years, you don't get to keep doing it, especially in my own house." She took a few deep breaths and composed herself again.

"I don't how you do it," she said. "How you get everyone to sympathise with you while you're hurling abuse at people. You make everyone believe that your pain, and only your pain, matters and that even mentioning your victims' pain makes you deserving of it yourself.

"It's the ingratitude that hurts the most. All I ever wanted to do was to help women. I gave away all my money to charities to do this, to the point I can't even afford to get my own house repaired." She gestured at the leaking ceiling. "I wanted to stand up for all the people in the world who were picked on and victimised. I wanted to take all the themes and ideas of my work and make them work in the real world. But you people just wouldn't let me.

"This," she said, gesturing downwards at her body, "is what makes me a woman. Not just my body, but the fact that it is something people can't just decide to have. These," she said, pulling up her blouse and stabbing a finger into her chest, "are proof of what I am. They bear witness to every struggle I had ever had in my life because I am a woman, and if anyone can just choose to become one with the flick of some doctor's wand all that becomes meaningless."

Harry felt his lips slowly begin to unseal themselves.

"You're not the first one I've caught, you know," she said. "People try the same thing from time to time. None have been creative enough to Polyjuice themselves into a celebrity before, but they had their ways of getting into my home. None ever made it out again. It's incredible how devoted to the cause your kind always are. I've not had a single person down here who ever gave up the truth. But what they didn't guess was that I'm just as dedicated as they were.

"Well have fun," she said, getting up and walking to the door. "I'll come back in a day or so and we'll see what you really look like."

As she went out so did the lighting spell, plunging Harry into an all-consuming darkness. His paralysis made it all the more terrifying. Without being able to even feel his surroundings it felt like anything could be out there now, mere millimetres from his skin, and he would never know.

"Don't talk," said the scratchy voice in the darkness. Harry froze. "It's me," the voice continued. "Tom." A low, soft light filled the room, and Harry saw the old elf's face looking into his with a kind expression.

"What do you want?" Harry asked.

"Mistress told me to make sure you don't leave the house, and I have to do everything she says. I don't think she really needs my help, to be honest."

"You're here to make fun of me."

"Not at all. Just, wait a second, could you hold this for me?" Tom said, placing a small glass vial in Harry's hand. It felt unnaturally warm. "Don't break it for god's sake, it would end every charm cast in this room. And don't let me forget to take it back before I leave, that would be terrible."

"Why are you doing this?" Harry asked.

"Why, to help Mistress of course. If you got out and away she could end up in prison, and if that happened I'd be free! Oh, I wouldn't know what to do with myself."

"Thanks for-" Harry began, but Tom interrupted him.

"Oh look!" Tom pointed to something on the door and walked over to inspect it. "Isn't that interesting? Anyway, must be gone." With that he vanished into thin air, leaving Harry once more in darkness.

He crushed the vial in his hand and felt a warm, wet feeling flood across his body, washing away whatever had bound him to the chair. He tried to stand but after hours bound to the chair his muscles would not move, and in his attempt he only managed to tip it onto the floor, leaving him sprawled across the stained, mouldy carpet.

He desperately tried to will himself to overcome the cramps paralysing his limbs, hoping she had not heard the noise of the falling chair, and over the minutes it took for them to start moving again he realised he had been lucky. Finally he could force himself to stand, and he slowly groped his way in what he thought was the direction of the door, until its rough wooden surface appeared against his palms. As he carefully pulled it open and warm light flooded in from the stairwell, Harry could only hope Katie would not hear him.


	3. Chapter 3

** Chapter 3 **

The door creaked very slightly as he opened it a crack. It seemed he had been lucky. From the top of the stairwell the living room looked empty. He could not hear anyone or anything, save for the battering of rain on the windows and the tinny whinings of an old gramophone.

His only chances lay in either taking back his wand from Katie or fleeing the house naked in the middle of a storm. If she noticed him even for an instant before he got it back he was done for and she would not leave him tied to a chair a second time, but what chance would he have unclothed and unarmed in the middle of a freezing gale?

Harry darted into the living room and ducked behind the sofa. Looking back he could see the stairs to the first floor and behind them the kitchen. A chopping sound from the latter drew his eye and standing up he saw a flock of cutlery swarming around to prepare food, and in the middle of it all stood Katie. He could sneak up behind her, he thought. It had to be in one of her pockets. But how would he even get near enough to her now with an army of knives in the way, ready and poised to kill him at a thought.

Suddenly she turned, and he dropped back behind the sofa and hoped he had not been seen. Her footsteps came straight at him and he prepared to jump out and rush her, but they turned and began walking away. Then he heard the sound of the basement door.

As her footsteps descended he rushed as quickly as he could without making a sound to the front door and carefully opened it. As he did he freezing wind engulfed him like a flood, and through the rain descending on the field like a hammer he could only barely make out the distant treeline beyond the ocean of sodden grass.

He ran for the nearest barn. Half its roof had collapsed years ago, but among the crates cluttering up the dry half he found a shadowy crevice where he could gain a brief moment of respite from the weather.

A shriek came from the house, audible even over the howling winds. Harry kept as still as possible, peeking over a crate at the front door, and saw Katie almost immediately burst out of the doorway like an angry bull.

She turned in his direction and began stalking over and Harry ducked back into his dark corner. As she entered light flared from her wand, painting the barn's interior with blinding lights and shadows, and Harry curled himself up as much as he could to fit inside the latter. Up and down the barn she stalked, but she did not see him and quickly left to check the others.

Harry slipped out and tried to keep low as he ran through the slick, waist-high grass towards the treeline. With every step pints of mud forced themselves up between his toes. Looking back for a second he could see no sign of her and felt like he was going to make it. Then the light went up.

It shot into the sky, an enormous shining flare lighting up the entire estate, surrounded by a brilliant corona of glowing rain. Harry dropped to the ground, before slowly lifting himself up to peek over the top of grass. He could see her now in the distance. Then she was gone.

Where she had been there was nothing, for a second, before a large red owl rose suddenly into the sky and began to circle the estate, trying desperately to avoid being battered around by the winds. As she lost control of herself and began a steep, panicked descent Harry saw his chance.

He sprinted as quickly as he could for the treeline, and one he reached it did not stop running. Looking back he glimpsed her staggering to her feet just outside the forest, perhaps a hundred yards from him, and he forced himself to run even faster into the concealing darkness of the thick, leafy canopy.

He quickly came across the remains of a large section of the fence surrounding the estate, lying strewn in the mud like the ancient skeleton of some great beast. Harry leapt over it and dashed behind the nearest tree on the other side.

He could feel it now. He was free. The anti-apparation spells no longer had a hold on him and he could escape anywhere now if he wished. But if she realised he had gotten away she would too. The second she stepped over the fence she could go anywhere in the world and there would be no way to tell where.

"Tom?" he heard her yell behind him. She was close, maybe fifty yards away. "Where are you, you ungrateful reprobate? I'll flay you for this!"

She was closer now, thirty yards or so, and peeking around the edge of the tree he saw her step over what remained of the fence. The light from her wand lit up everything between them, and there was nowhere in that distance he could now hide. As she walked past his tree, barely ten yards from him, he slipped out from behind it and ran at her.

She heard him immediately, the thunder of his footsteps hammering on the ground, and turned to bring up her wand but she was too late. Harry ducked under her arm and slammed into her chest, wrapping her in a bear hug. As they hit the ground together he apparated.

The tight, crushing sensation pressed the wind out of both of them as they were sucked through space, until finally Azkaban's apparating platform warped itself out of the technicolour whirlwind and they landed with a thud. As Harry extricated himself from Katie he saw the guards around them frozen in surprise. It seemed they had not expected a naked, mud-covered man to appear gripping an elderly woman.

"Stun her!" Harry shouted with the little breath still in him. Katie staggered to her feet, looking around in disbelief at her surroundings, but as she raised her wand at the guards she went suddenly rigid from their barrage of curses. She toppled to the ground like a collapsing statue.

As Harry clambered to his feet he saw Bill Weasley running over from the guard post.

"Harry?" Bill asked.

"Yeah," Harry said, clambering to his feet. "Do you have a cloak or something?"

"Sure, I- what the hell happened?" Bill said, evaporating Harry's covering of mud and rain with a flick of his wand.

"Can I just have a moment to-" Harry trailed off.

"Sure," Bill said, conjuring a cloak which wrapped itself around Harry.

"Is that Katie Redford?" Bill said, as the frozen form on the ground glared at him as if trying to kill him with a look. Harry nodded. "My god, what happened to her?" Harry shrugged. "What happened to you?"

"Just give me a minute, okay?" Harry said. "I'll tell you later. For the minute just get her in there somewhere."

An hour later Harry was sitting in an empty visiting room, sipping his fourth mug of hot chocolate as he finished telling Bill everything.

"Wow," Bill said. "Was she always like that? I remember meeting her at a book signing in Diagon Alley once. She seemed so nice."

"So did Ginny's pen pal."

"True." Bill thought for a second. "How are you going to tell her about all this?"

"Please, just don't make me think about that right now."

"Alright," Bill said, getting up, "I need to go and process all of Katie's paperwork before we can hold her here. Oh, I almost forgot." He pulled an envelope out of his pocket. "This turned up shortly after you did."

Harry took the letter, which was addressed to him in a neat and florid script. Whatever was inside felt oddly soft. He tore it open and tipped its contents into his hand, and out fell a single, solitary sock.


End file.
